Romney’s recent perilous misadventure would make sense if he were secretly a Democratic Mata Hari who’d duped the GOP into nominating him and is now hell bent on sabotaging his own candidacy.

Instead, he has oafishly meandered through the past 14 days of the campaign, not quite scuttling his candidacy, but doing more than enough to prompt storm clouds of doubt to muster on the horizon.

Luckily for Romney, Obama’s severe underperformance in addressing the national recession still makes the president an eminently beatable incumbent.

And Obama has done little to justify his re-election beyond attempting to argue that he’s cooler than the former Massachusetts governor.

But while Romney’s recent missteps had seemed only mildly worrying, their recent rapid accumulation require serious readjustments if he is to stand a chance of claiming the White House.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Romney’s sudden slippage began as his coronation as the GOP nominee ended.

Republicans, usually the nation’s foreign policy Old Faithful, nominated a man who neglected to reference the war in Afghanistan or U.S. troops in his acceptance speech.

While Romney received no real bump from the Republican convention, the Democratic convention gave Obama a modest poll boost.

That missed opportunity and the lack of meaty specifics in Romney’s convention speech prompted a flurry of clarion calls from conservative pundits.

The right-leaning Wall Street Journal editorialized that Romney was too vague and criticized him for “failing to explain his own agenda.”

And conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham lamented: “If the election were held today, Mitt Romney would lose.”

As if to fan the flames of his own spontaneous campaign combustion, Romney then casually provoked the conservative base of his party during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

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Although the former Massachusetts governor is considered the inspiration for Obama’s unpopular Affordable Care Act, he has repeatedly and unequivocally pledged to repeal the plan opponents derisively call “Obamacare.”

But during last weekend’s appearance, Romney — who reportedly remains extremely proud of the original Massachusetts version of the law he passed — said he would retain some pieces of the plan.

“Well, I’m not getting rid of all of health care reform,” he said in the interview. “Of course there are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I’m going to put in place.”

That declaration didn’t turn the heads of independents, and disbelieving conservatives were gobsmacked. Within hours, the Romney campaign moonwalked his “Meet the Press” remarks back.

“In a competitive environment, the marketplace will make available plans that include coverage for what there is demand for,” the statement read. “He was not proposing a federal mandate to require insurance plans to offer those particular features.”

REMARKS ON LIBYA

With pundits in his own party still baying for a campaign course change and his “Meet the Press” jig still fresh, came the attack on the U.S. embassy in Libya.

The awkward situation was precipitated by rumors in the Islamic world that an obscure, low-budget anti-Muslim YouTube video made by a California Egyptian-American would soon be making the rounds as a major film.

As tensions over the clip escalated, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo issued a statement denouncing religious intolerance.

But suspicion that the video would be widely distributed prompted demonstrations Tuesday outside U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya.

And while both facilities were attacked, the outrage directed at the embassy in Benghazi, Libya took the form of small arms fire, a breech of the building walls and deadly assaults on staff that were not able to flee. J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, was killed.

Romney, who has made repairing the weak U.S. economy the centerpiece of his campaign, seized upon the incident, painting Obama as soft on foreign policy, and pointed to the Cairo communiqué as proof.

“It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks,” Romney said in a statement, even though the Cairo communiqué was issued before the attacks on the embassies.

But instead of providing him a leg up in the race, Romney’s knee-jerk reaction drew condemnation from several sectors as actions unbecoming of a man who wants to be president.

“I don’t think President Obama sympathizes with those who attacked us,” Ridge said. “I don’t think any American does.”

No leading congressional Republicans criticized Romney directly, but neither did any find fault with the president’s handling of the situation.

“For a challenger looking to close the gap on a sitting president, the deafening silence of Republican leaders in the Congress distancing themselves from Romney was telling,” said Ed Uravic, a former Republican strategist. Uravic ran political campaigns through three decades and is now a professor at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology.

Obama didn’t resist capitalizing on the situation politically either.

In a direct swipe at Romney, Obama said the former Massachusetts governor “seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later.”

“I don’t know that either campaign necessarily covered themselves in glory on Wednesday,” said Daniel Schnur, an endowed professor at the University of Southern California and a former communications director for John McCain’s failed 2000 presidential campaign.

Romney doubled-down on his Cairo critique Wednesday, saying the communiqué was “an apology for American principles.”

But with few allies to defend his position and a building perception that he was seeking political gain from a national tragedy, Romney backed off the attack Thursday.

Romney’s foreign policy two-step has placed the subject firmly in a campaign that had been almost exclusively about creating jobs and boosting the national economy.

“Whether it’s a continuing factor, or a flash in the pan will be dependent on how long the unrest persists in the Muslim world,” said Joseph Melrose, a former U.S. ambassador to Sierra Leone and currently a professor at Ursinus College in Collegeville. “If the leaders can’t get control of it, I could see it being more of an issue.”

TIME TO RECOVER

Now, Romney’s best path to the White House requires a definitive showing at the first presidential debate Oct. 3.

“He has a terrific opportunity coming up in the debates,” said Uravic, the former GOP strategist.

“Gov. Romney can continue being the boring media unfriendly candidate he’s been all summer,” he continued. “It’s not something that goes over well with people in politics, but it’s not going to get him into any more trouble. If he stays on message with the economy, he can hang on until the first debate and then spring forward.”

What’s unclear is if putting his head down, and plowing forward with standard campaigning can keep his candidacy viable until that first debate date.

“Nothing that’s happened over the past couple weeks is fatal,” said Schnur, the former McCain adviser. “These are the types of things that get a lot of attention between the last convention and the first debate.

“Everyday he talks about the economy is a good day for the campaign, and everyday he doesn’t isn’t. The next couple weeks for him should just be about getting back to basics.”

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